There’s been a lot of activity in recent weeks for major corporations to catch a bit of the YouTube rush, especially now that the video sharing site has beat out MySpace in popularity. It all smells like serious bouts of identity crises if you ask me.

There’s been a lot of activity in recent weeks for major corporations to catch a bit of the YouTube rush, especially now that the video sharing site has beat out MySpace in popularity. It all smells like serious bouts of identity crises if you ask me.

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First there’s MTV Flux or is it Flux? In fact it’s a little of both. The new social networking service includes extensions on TV, the Web, and on mobile. Flux users can push content via mobile and Web that will play alongside videos of their choosing. Even text messages could end up being displayed on the channel and self-created avatars will serve as the users’ online identities. Official launch of the site is set for August 1, with the TV channel following on September 6.

Also riding the YouTube wave, AOL plans to relaunch its video service on August 4. Along with user submissions, content will also include 45 video-on-demand channels featuring programming from the History Channel, Comedy Time, MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, WNBA, and Warner Bros. And following the lead of Amazon and Apple into the Netflix arena, AOL plans to enable users to subscribe and rent videos later this year.

Joining the video sharing, social networking fray is CNN with its citizen journalism site, CNN Exchange. The site — which enables users to submit audio and video clips, as well as articles and graphics via web or mobile phone — went live today. CNN Exchange I-Reports are being powered by blip.tv‘s video publishing services and the best content may end up on TV. CNN blogs, including Anderson Cooper’s 360° blog are also featured on site.

With the current trend of online users flocking to user generated media sites like YouTube and MySpace — and blogs — professional media organizations are finding themselves having to fully embrace these concepts. What do you think of the new video services?

About the author

Lynne d Johnson is a Content + Community Consultant developing content and community strategies that help brands better tell their stories and build better relationships with people toward driving brand awareness, loyalty, and purchase intent. She has been writing about tech and media since the Web 1.0 days, most recently about how the future of consumer interactions will be driven by augmented reality and wearable tech.